The Personal Brand Myth — and Why Presence Wins

The myth of the “personal brand” started in 1997.
And it’s still wasting our time.

The phrase was coined by Tom Peters in Fast Company in an essay called “The Brand Called You.” His idea? In a world of layoffs and corporate churn, you couldn’t rely on a company to protect you. So you had to treat yourself like a product.

Package yourself. Polish yourself. Market yourself.

“You’re every bit as much a brand as Nike or Coke.” That was the line.

Corporate culture ran with it. Not to empower people, but to control them.

Suddenly, if you wanted to get ahead, you had to perform your brand at all times. It became the softer side of “executive presence” — don’t crack, don’t question, don’t reveal too much. Keep it sellable.

Here’s the problem: this isn’t authenticity with guardrails. It’s performance with a mask.
And it props up the very systems that burn people out — cultures that reward optics over results, polish over presence, and reputation over reality.

The Alternative: Presence

Presence doesn’t need polish. It doesn’t need a campaign. It doesn’t need to be performed.

Presence looks like:

• Honest, decent, consistent.

• Works hard, learns, and cares about the team.

• Controls emotion — but is vulnerable when it matters.

My husband embodies this. He doesn’t curate a “personal brand.” He simply leads with integrity — and it shows without effort.

The Data Is Clear

Authenticity and trust aren’t “soft skills.” They’re business-critical.

• Teams with authentic leadership see 23% higher engagement (Gallup).

• 81% of people need to trust their leader before they’ll fully engage (Edelman).

• High-trust companies outperform low-trust ones by up to 3x in stock returns (Great Place to Work / FTSE Russell).

And yet:

• 93–95% of executives admit trust improves the bottom line — but only around 60% of employees actually feel trusted.

• 64% of employees feel burnt out weekly, driving absenteeism up by 23%.

Why Don’t More Companies Get This?

Because presence requires trust. It dismantles systems built on optics, not integrity.
It demands leaders who can handle honesty and vulnerability — instead of silencing them.

Personal branding was always a mask.
Presence is the truth.

And the truth works better — for the individual, the team, and the company.